Author: ACT News Team
Having opened in 1997, Dopazo & Associates was born just as the Internet was making its widespread public debut. The Miami-based agency found it could build a robust business without spending a ton on overhead if it could catch clients using the spinnerets of the expanding Web.
"We were growing as the Internet took off, so we were in a good place to capitalize on that," says Alex Dopazo, CIC, VP and head of commercial renewals and homeowners at the agency. Alex's father, Maximo, owns the agency and is president, but Alex plays a key role in operations, sales, and the technology end of the business, and he has a high level of sensitivity to what plays well in the world of customer experience and what fails.
The main factors for success, he's discovered, are being found, being thorough and being respectful.
Being found doesn't have to be expensive, Alex says. The agency exploits search engine optimization—no pay for clicks—and even in a huge market like Florida, Dopazo & Associates has thousands of business and individual clients spanning the state, from the Keys up both coasts and central Florida through the panhandle. While clients can go into the physical office, most of the agency's business is through online sales.
That brings us to handling online sales. Alex says they don't want to just provide a commodity. Dopazo & Associates is really about providing expertise that gets clients the protection they most need. So, how does one do that without a sit-down office visit or phone conversation? The answer at Dopazo & Associates is a substantial online application that generates a reliable quote. For those clients just dipping their toes in the water or who want to see if the agency is right for them, the website offers an Ask a Question option. Alex or someone else at the agency responds within a business day, and sometimes that small interaction can build trust with a prospect or become the starting point of a new relationship resulting in a sale. The personalized attention is a distinguishing factor in a world of robo-generated responses.
"Our company is best at serving clients who are willing to engage and provide full information," Alex says. "There are plenty of other models for people who want limited engagement. For us, we ask a lot of thorough questions. If people object, we explain that good information produces good underwriting. We want them to get the best coverage at the best price. That means we need to ask a lot of specific questions."
No Wasted Clicks
But Dopazo & Associates is also aware that people don't have unlimited time to play around on the Internet. That's why its website is designed for clarity, speed and precision.
"Because we are small, we need the efficiencies the Internet brings," he says. "Web customers expect, or at least want, a quote in a short period of time. By using technology, we are able to better meet a lot of these needs—security, speed, back-office operations. We also don't want to lose customers because our website is clunky. It's frustrating if you click on something and it goes nowhere or goes to something you didn't think it would. If it's me and someone wastes my click, I'm going to another site. We don't want that to happen at our agency, so we make everything clear, fast and easy to navigate."
Dopazo & Associates' website receives about 120 submissions a month. The website guides users to highly targeted submissions, breaking down commercial insurance by coverage type and business sector, even honing choices down to subsectors—for example, under contractors, a prospect can select from more than a dozen specialties, such as concrete contractor, electrician, or swimming pool. Though personal insurance choices are simpler, there is still a broad range, including flood and non-property coverage, such as health coverage for travelers since the agency caters to an international community.
Handling all the online activity takes more than just a Web connection, though. Alex says there's no agency management system that fits all Dopazo's needs, so they cobble together compatible programs that best serve what the agency is doing. Those components together can create an integrated system that responds to client and back-office needs. Additionally he notes, agency management systems are not as user friendly or intuitive as one would expect in this day and age.
"You have to think the way their programmer thinks," Alex says. "Really, technology has to be intuitive to the user or you are going to lose them. That's what we've done at our agency. Make it simple. Keep it simple. Even if the interface is substantial with a lot of information trading hands, it needs to be clean, easy to get around."
Hiring the Tech Generation
Hiring to maintain and enhance Dopazo's tech-based model is challenging but not difficult, Alex says. The selection process focuses on getting a good cultural fit as well as quality skills. Part of the hiring protocol is an online personality test—Dopazo uses Omnia. "We want to make sure we cull out people who are not going to fit early on so we don't spend a lot of resources on someone who ultimately isn't going to work out."
Since Dopazo is a browser-based agency, it's important that employees are comfortable operating in that milieu. Beyond the Web-based personality test, prospective hires are also expected to demonstrate their comfort level on social media and take an online typing test, which comes as part of the second interview for those who make it that far. The social media "test" might include things as simple as "find Alex on LinkedIn," he says, but it's geared primarily to discover if the applicant has proficiency—or at least comfort—operating with today's client-interaction platforms.
"Everything else, we teach them ourselves," says Alex.
In a nod to the power of millennials in this technological age, Dopazo & Associates, unlike most of agencies today, is heavily staffed with young people.
"Many of our hires tend to be younger. They just fit the criteria a little better. There are eight of us in the agency, and four are under 25 years old," Alex says.
Dopazo & Associates is capitalizing on a new concept of "full service," using not only traditional products, operations and delivery methods but also all the advances available to businesses from the technology revolution. Alex says it's not only a lot of fun to keep up on new developments; it's the lifeline of any agency that is going to survive.